By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., October 29, 2019 – The Washington Informer recently celebrated its 55th anniversary of publishing “positive news” in the Washington Metropolitan area, and to mark the occasion, Publisher Denise Rolark Barnes made this announcement on Facebook: “Over the next few months, we will turn The Washington Informer into a more relevant publication in the digital world.”
I had the good fortune of working with this award-winning newspaper as News Editor for more than 12 years when I previously lived in Washington, D.C. for 21 years (1975 -1996). As a veteran Bahamian journalist when I initially relocated to D.C. in 1975, for reasons that shall be detailed over several chapters of my memoirs that I am currently writing, finding a job with an established newspapers like the Washington Post was extremely difficult, given the fact that there were very few Black journalists employed by The Post at the time.
In fact, it was because there were so few Black journalists working with established white-owned newspapers back then that a group of Black journalists got together and founded the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in 1975 to increase the representation Blacks in the media profession.
Among the 44 founders of NABJ was Leon Dash, currently a Professor of Journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with whom I developed a close friendship when he was an editorial consultant with the Nassau Guardian and I was Editor of the Freeport News, which is owned by The Guardian.
As I noted in a commentary several months ago, Leon and my friend from boyhood days Sir Charles Carter attended high school together in New York, and when Sir Charles became publisher of the Nassau Guardian in 2006, he contacted his old-time friend who had established a very successful career as a journalist in the United States.
Sir Charles had also become a renowned journalist, but radio and television were the foundation for his journalistic accomplishments, and he realized that the challenges that lie ahead as publisher of one of The Bahamas’ leading daily newspapers required the advice and support of someone who had experience in the print aspect of the Fourth Estate.
Professor Dash devised and established a highly effective journalistic training program at The Guardian after he became a consultant, and he took his training program one step further by arranging for several young reporters at The Guardian, who had undergraduate degrees, to obtain scholarships at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to study for their Master’s Degree in journalism.
Because I had previously lived in Washington, D.C., for 21 years before returning to The Bahamas permanently in 1996, I knew that Leon Dash was an award-winning reporter at the Washington Post, but I met him for the first time when I attended a board meeting at The Guardian in Nassau as Editor of the Freeport News, which is owned by The Guardian.
His contributions to those meetings impressed me tremendously and there was no question in my mind at the time that Sir Charles had made an excellent choice in “contracting” the services of his boyhood friend as a consultant.
Dash’s pioneering background in helping to “tear down” racial barriers in journalism at the Washington Post included being one of seven black reporters at The Post, known as The Metro Seven, who filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against the paper in 1972, charging that the newspaper with “denying Black employees an equal opportunity with respect to job assignments, promotional opportunities, including promotions to management positions and other terms and conditions of employment.”
The up-hill-struggle for equality by Black journalists in the D.C. area was still ongoing when I moved to D.C. in 1975; however, although I difficulty finding employment with a newspaper, I was successful in finding a job that required me to utilize my skills as a journalist when was hired as an Editor with the Publications Department of the Institute for Services to Education (ISE), an educational services organization that was established under the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson ostensibly to assist in upgrading the standard of education in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s).
The more than 100 senior staff of ISE were at the PhD level educationally and consisted of a collection of some of the most accomplished Black educators in the United States in the various disciplines, and each summer they would convene for six weeks on the campus of an HBCU to develop and refine new curricula material to eventually be introduced in HBCUs.
During three of the four years I was with ISE, the summer conference was held at Dillard University in New Orleans, which is one of the reasons why New Orleans today is still one of my most favourite cities in the United States. Unfortunately, when Ronald Regan became President in 1980, the Office of Education cut funding for ISE out of its budget and it eventually closed.
A friend who knew about my journalistic background in The Bahamas recommended me to Denise’s father, the late Dr. Calvin W. Rolark, Sr., who hired me in 1982 when Denise, who had recently graduated from Howard University Law School, was studying for her Bar examination and could not devote as much time as she used to do helping to produce the Washington Informer weekly.
In addition to being Publisher and Editor of the Washington Informer, Dr. Rolark was also President of the United Black Fund (UBF), a non-profit community-based organization committed to improving the lives of Blacks and impoverished people in the Washington DC area. Aside from the fact that he was my boss, we also developed a very close friendship.
As I noted in an earlier article in BAHAMAS CHRONICLE on how The Bahamas became a participant in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, Dr. Rolark, as Publisher and Editor of The Washington Informer, applied for and won the right for his weekly publication to take over sponsorship of the District-wide Spelling Bee during the 1981-82 school year after the then sponsor, The Washington Daily News, was sold and eventually closed, leaving the D.C. Spelling Bee without a sponsor.
Subsequently, I attended by first Scripps Spelling Bee in 1984 and was so impressed that I made up my mind that whenever I returned to The Bahamas to live, I would seek to have the Scripps Bee inculcated into our education system. I succeeded in doing this when I was Editor of the Nassau Guardian in 1997.
Meanwhile, because of my close ties to The Washington Informer, I have been advocating over the years that as one of the world’s leading tourist destinations, The Bahamas could benefit immensely from advertising in The Washington Informer, which is widely circulated in the Washington Metropolitan area – including suburban areas of Maryland and Virginia, where many African-American professionals and those who work for the Federal Government make the kind of income that allows them to be able to afford an annual vacation to a foreign country.
I stressed this point on more than one occasion to then Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe in the former Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government. Mr. Wilchcombe was one of the featured speakers when the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), which represents more than 200 Black-owned newspapers across the United States, held its mid-winter meetings in Nassau in 2015, and he made a solemn promise to the publishers that the NNPA would be included in the next tourism budget. Of course, Mr. Wilchcombe did not keep that promise.
I have likewise made several appeals to the current decision-makers in the Ministry of Tourism on behalf of the Black Press, particularly the Washington Informer, because I am extremely proud of the excellent product my “sister,” Publisher Denise Rolark Barnes, and her staff produce every Thursday.
Clearly, in the aftermath of the massive devastation caused by Hurricane Dorian to Grand Bahama and Abaco, as the Ministry of Tourism intensifies its campaign to convince prospective visitors to The Bahamas that despite the devastation caused to two of the country’s major northern islands The Bahamas is STILL OPEN FOR BUSINESS, now is the time to advertise in the Black Press.
NOTE: To read Publisher Denise Rolark Barnes’ anniversary letter, click on the following link: http://bit.ly/WI55celebration. Also, to see how you can contribute to the Washington Informer Charities — which sponsors a raft of community-based programs, including the D.C. Spelling Bee and the Prince George’s County Spelling Bee – as well as support its digital transformation to increase community engagement, visit www.wicharities.org to make your tax-deductible donation today.
